… watching the mass of changes on eBay UK.

By Angie Mattholie

Feelings of fear and uncertainty are running higher then ever amongst eBay UK sellers regarding the latest moves taken by eBay UK, in particular the dramatic changes to the Feedback (FB) Policy.  Considering the messy, disorganised and chaotic way in which the changes are being implemented, this is hardly surprising.

So what are the changes?

The changes to the Feedback Policy were implemented on 15th May 2008, meaning that from this date sellers are only able to leave Positive Feedback for buyers. At the same time, the Mutual Feedback Withdrawal process has been removed completely. Sellers in Australia & UK were horrified to find a new pop-up when leaving FB, which reminds buyers that they can now leave a Neutral or Negative feedback without fear of retaliation.

The new pop-up for buyers leaving bad feedback is clearly being ignored by buyers already. Those buyers seem more than happy to tick a box saying they have communicated with their seller without actually having done so.

When asked, Richard Ambrose (Head of eBay UK Trust & Safety) confirmed that eBay will not be removing bad FB from buyers who have failed to communicate first with their seller, on the grounds that “We can’t know when a buyer has or hasn’t communicated with a seller”.  Yet, eBay have been repeatedly asked by a large number of business sellers to force buyers to contact the seller via eBay’s messaging system, a process that they could easily implement, but have so far chosen to ignore in favour of the ‘buying experience’.

The new calculation of Positive Feedback percentage:

a) Now includes neutrals in the calculation (this was included in the original announcements in January, but well hidden and never announced as a specific change by eBay UK - in fact, it came to light at the end of April when an eBay Canada announcement made it clearer)

b) Is now calculated based on Unique FB (including repeat Feedback Credit) as opposed to all FB.  This was never announced.  The calculation specified on FB pages clearly states ‘all positive + all neutrals + all negatives’ and Richard Ambrose has so far refused to admit, or even comment on, the fact that the calculation as stated on Discussion Boards and on the Feedback Changes page, is incorrect.

Not all the changes have been implemented yet.

The 7-day delay for buyers leaving neutral or negative feedback for PowerSellers apparently applied only to transactions ending on or after 15th May, even though the ability to reciprocate feedback was removed for all transactions, including those transactions ending prior to the 15^th May 2008.

There is still very little information to be found about the forthcoming feedback hub for sellers, which is due to arrive sometime around the end of May. The most we can find out about this feature, is that it will be “a dedicated hub for sellers to report malicious or unfair feedback from buyers” with no specific detail of what eBay may constitute ‘unfair‘. Furthermore, PowerSellers who have contacted eBay Support, during the last week, regarding unfair feedback received, have been told that the only way they can get it removed is with a court order (source PowerSeller Discussion Board).

Within the changes to the Feedback Policy, plans were also announced to remove negative and neutral FB from users who are ‘No Longer Registered’ on the site, yet, to date this has not been announced, nor the action happened.

Add to all that: Unannounced changes to Seller Non-Performance:
Recent and simultaneous changes to eBay’s Seller Non-Performance Policy (SNP), without warning or announcement, are even more concerning. In April, we reported that they had lowered the barrier for SNP to 5% ‘Bad’ feedback received in the last 90 days.  It became apparent this week that the goalposts had shifted still further, when sellers were being suspended for as little as 1 or 2% bad FB, and in some cases, suspended sellers have no negative feedback at all, only neutral, which completely contradicts the original announcements and assurances by eBay employees regarding the policy. Some of the affected people have been told by eBay support “they think this is an error but cannot do anything about it“.

Richard Ambrose, when directly questioned about this issue, confirmed that “SNP has become a lot tougher recently – very deliberately, as we want to use it to remove under-performing sellers from the site faster and more effectively”.

He has also confirmed that the SNP has indeed been ramped up, and is now calculated on 30 days rather than 90, but has flatly refused to disclose any further information regarding the SNP calculation on the grounds that “they just get gamed by professional fraudsters”.

So what are all these changes achieving?

Well eBay really do seem to be on a mission to ‘evict’ as many sellers as possible and with the least amount of effort.  In addition to the statements quoted earlier, EBay UK’s Head of Trust & Safety has maintained that “Only 1.5% of sellers are sanctioned in a year” and has so far not commented on the statement by LiveWorld that some sanctions may have been done in error. Their original announcement back in January 2008, concentrated on ‘Great Service‘ whilst the feedback changes were said to be eradicating retaliatory feedback and improving accuracy.

This approach may well be successful for some of the more unscrupulous sellers, but it looks highly likely that a large number of innocent sellers are going to be hit along the way. These sellers, some of whom have received no negative FB at all, have been referred to as ‘edge cases’, ‘Close calls’, ‘Dolphins caught in the net’, ‘cannon fodder’ and ‘collateral damage’ and are in grave danger of permanently losing their livelihoods as a result of eBay’s blanket policies.

These ‘Dolphins’ have been assured that the SNP barrier will be reviewed during May and early June. Until this happens though, they remain as suspended non-performing sellers for a minimum of 30-days; unable to appeal; unable to have their case reviewed; unable to list, buy, or sell; unable to withdraw FB; even in some cases unable to contact previous customers to fulfil outstanding orders (as their listings and all the associated data have been removed by eBay).

Whilst it is good to hear that eBay are finally concerned enough to do something about the trustworthiness of the site, Richard Ambrose’s statements, regarding his policy being reviewed some time soon, are of no comfort whatsoever to the growing number of sellers who have received 30-day selling suspensions as a result of both the FB and SNP changes being implemented simultaneously. It is blatantly apparent that rather than take the time to look at individual cases, eBay will go to any lengths with their blanket approach to Trust and Safety, regardless of the innocent people they take out along the way; where eBay was once proud to call itself a ‘Community’, those ethics seem to have been well and truly lost!

Removal of Mutual Feedback Withdrawal, which was originally scheduled to take place in the second half of 2008, was somewhat hurriedly brought forward to May in line with the rest of the FB changes. Buyers who fail to contact sellers with issues prior to leaving FB have always been an issue for sellers, but even more so now that FB has become irreversible.

Unfortunately, there has been something of a culture on eBay (for many buyers) of bad FB being used as a stick to make sellers act. With the arrival of enforced business registration for sellers (1^st May 2008) and the on-eBay compulsory minimum 14-day return policy for business sellers (from 31^st May 2008) bringing the site (roughly) in line with the UK Distance Selling Regulations, buyers ought to become gradually aware of the more businesslike and professional way of transacting on eBay, and will hopefully learn that these ‘sticks’ need no longer be used.

However, it will take time for this evolution to spread amongst the buying community and for buyers to gain faith in these systems. In the meantime, many buyers are still leaving bad FB without contacting the seller first, then once the transaction has been happily resolved they are finding out that there is no way to retract their premature FB. Not only can these premature feedbacks not be removed, but they are also counting against the sellers in respect of SNP.

Non-paying Bidders/Buyers (NPBs) are more of a problem than ever. What eBay do not seem to want to accept, is that those ‘customers’ who don’t pay aren’t actually buyers!

In this seller’s experience, a good proportion of the problems encountered on eBay are caused by people clicking Buy It Now and then not paying, which costs the seller money in eBay fees. One part of those fees (the Final Value Fee) can be claimed back from eBay by opening an ‘Unpaid Item Dispute’; the basic Listing Fee can in theory be reclaimed if the item sells successfully when relisted, the Gallery Fee and other listing upgrades are lost forever and if you suffer from frequent NPBs, this can amount to quite a sizeable sum of money.

This all comes down to one thing: eBay’s wording on the page before you ‘Commit to Buy’ of “You are agreeing to a contract — You will enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller”. The fact that eBay state that a contract is being formed, is what allows them to charge the seller for the transaction at that moment.

Whether or not that ‘contract’ is legal, is not for me to comment. It is virtually impossible to say whether this has ever been tested in court as it is something, which would normally be dealt with in the Small Claims Courts, which are not documented in the same way as High Court decisions are.

However, with the Distance Selling Regulations (UK DSRs) in force, and giving eBay buyers up to 14 days from receipt of their purchase to change their mind and return the item(s), it is highly unlikely that any seller would want to go down the route of using the Small Claims Court to force a potential buyer to fulfil a ‘contract’ that they can still change their mind about afterwards anyway.

This contract wording would appear to be in place for one reason & one reason only: so that eBay can validate keeping the listing upgrade fees, even if the customer doesn’t pay. UK DSRs forbid sellers from recouping the losses from the customer, as the ‘customer’ if they change their mind should be returned to the position they were originally in (with the possible exception of paying return P&P).

Anywhere else, if a customer cancels it doesn’t cost anything. On Amazon Marketplace, the order isn’t placed until after the payment has been made, and if the order is refunded for any reason, so are all the associated fees. On individual websites there are or course no transaction fees except for the payment fees, so this situation doesn’t occur. It would appear to be only eBay that has this continuous discontent over sellers being charged fees for transactions that effectively never happened.

In my opinion, that is what needs changing – and maybe the legalities of this ‘contract’ need looking into by someone more knowledgeable and better qualified than myself. Especially now that eBay are insisting on business sellers complying with the UK DSRs, they really need to have an order cancellation process in place, so that the seller does not lose out financially (any more than the law requires) as a result of the cancellation of the contract.

EBay are keeping money they aren’t owed, even more so now than ever. Since the recent changes, more and more sellers have expressed their reluctance about starting UPI disputes for fear of upsetting a buyer who will immediately leave bad feedback that can’t be removed. This is highly understandable considering that even the most ‘excellent’ sellers seemingly only need to have their account hit with a small number of un-removable neutral FB before their account is restricted.

Sellers on eBay’s Discussion Boards have been calling for an unconditional Sale Cancellation Process, to be initiated by the buyers, which does seem like a rather good idea.  Imagine if eBay would refund ALL the fees upon cancellation of a sale: there would be no real need anymore for animosity towards potential buyers who change their mind; therefore no need to be awkward to them; no need for buyers to get hostile & leave bad FB; no need for sellers to look for ways to retaliate. Neither the buyer nor the seller would be out of pocket as a result of the non-transaction, leaving eBay to sort out the real criminals, the fraudsters.

Best Offer has gone a long way towards encouraging the ‘cheap’ perception of eBay, and hobby sellers have done the rest. With the mass of fee increases EBay have introduced over the past couple of years, together with significantly reduced ’cross-border visibility’; and now an extra fee introduced last week to obtain the UK-US visibility that was free until last year, ‘Cheap’ is becoming less of an option.

‘Cheap’ is the way of eBay though, this has been the main core of their marketing strategy for years; that, and the idea that anyone in their living room can play at being a trader or sell off a few bits and pieces they no longer need.

The introduction of ‘Best Offer’ encouraged many buyers to believe that they could offer as low a price as they wished for an item and that it would be accepted. Indeed many sellers have seen complaints rise in the last couple of years regarding their prices, saying that they are “supposed to be cheaper on eBay than anywhere else” along with threats of reporting sellers to eBay for breaking a ‘rule’ that was nothing more than the buyer’s perception.

So whereas Business Sellers seemed to be eBay’s punishment target for a long time, interestingly, the moves they made earlier this year, in respect of business sellers and UK DSRs, would appear to be aimed in the opposite direction – restricting how much hobby sellers can list/sell, and encouraging businesses.

This could be a good move: as the hobby sellers dwindle and/or are restricted from selling in such large quantities, businesses will start charging more realistic prices; buyers will gradually have to get used to paying a more realistic price on what used to be considered the cheapest platform, but due to frequent fee-hikes has become one of the most expensive.  This will only happen though, for those business sellers who manage to survive all of the FB changes, SNP changes and fee-hikes thrown at them

Is it too late… ?

Is eBay ‘growing up’ too late?

There have been quite a few interesting comments in the last few days about eBay being childish.

Well it’s true, both as a company, and by the actions of the buyers. From a buyer’s point of view, eBay was built around feedback, about being able to say whatever you like about people, firstly anyone you wanted, then it was restricted to people you had traded with.
Later they had to bring in rules about FB withdrawal, both mutual and through eBay support. Along the way, there have been many small alterations to this withdrawal policy. Now we see the biggest revamp to date to the ‘core of the community’ – the Feedback Policy – where the FB facility for sellers has been restricted much further.

Removing Mutual FB Withdrawal earlier than planned was a huge mistake in my opinion. Buyers have not got used to (or are not even aware of) the fact they can no longer withdraw FB comments – as a result, the beloved ‘buying experience’ is going to disintegrate. Whilst I actually agree that malicious reciprocal FB had become a big problem, it could have been dealt with in a less ‘blanket’ approach, which wouldn’t have caused too many problems to innocent sellers.

PS Support, have however, confirmed on 23^rd May 2008 that the rules on what they can and can’t remove have expanded already since 15 may, and this is only a week after the new FB was launched, so clearly eBay can see that it’s not working as intended, but only in time will we be able to see if and how the Policy is evolved.

The accumulation of all these changes, combined with falling sales and a lack of faith in eBay’s new Search System, is certainly taking its toll on eBay’s Business Sellers. On one Discussion Board thread alone, a disturbing number of PowerSellers have announced their intention to quit selling on eBay, either immediately or as soon as possible. Many sellers agree that they are too dejected and disheartened to put any effort into the site and have, as they put it, “lost the will to list”.

What is notable about this trend is that these are all highly ranked and extremely professional Business Sellers, exactly the type of seller that eBay really ought to be trying to encourage.  Although eBay staff have not commented publicly, surely even eBay Towers must be becoming alarmed at the growing feeling of uncertainty and despondency that is rapidly growing amongst its top sellers.

From the point of view of eBay as a company, it seems to be trying to ‘grow-up’.  As one PowerSeller wisely noted: “It’s almost like it’s just reached it’s troubling teens, and will be very much a different creature in it’s adulthood”

Whether it ever reaches it’s ‘adulthood’ though, could very well depend on how quickly and successfully it deals with the public perception of the site. This onlooker fears the perception lag could take quite a few years to shake off, but that’s a whole other story .